The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances. Join the Shattered Sun Offensive in shutting down Kael’thas’ nefarious operations. This new force is comprised by both the Aldor and Scryers and is led by the Naaru. Players will take part in claiming Sun’s Reach and setting up a larger base of operation to stop Kael’thas and the Legion.

Combat Log Improvements

The combat log has undergone improvements that allow more robust combat filtering including the ability to define custom colors for enemies and friends as well as combat filtering for self and others.

General

The combined forces of Shattrath have launched an attack on the Isle of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell and surrounding areas. Players will now be able to gain reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive and participate in a new set of daily quests.

A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.

Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.

Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.

Item Cast Spells: Many spells cast by items were being cast as if the caster were the same level as the item. Most of those will now cast at the player’s level, giving them a reasonable chance to miss, be dispelled, or be resisted.

Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.

Weapon Skill: Points will be gained faster in weapon skills for levels 1 through 59.

Racials

Find Treasure: This ability no longer deactivates upon death.

Druids

Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final heal from Lifebloom.

Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from Tranquility.

Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the attack power of the Druid.

Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown, increased from 1.0.

Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent.

When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.

Hunter

Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues.

Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players.

Hunter’s Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter’s Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter’s Mark cast by Hunters without the talent.

The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase.

Mages

Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Fire Ward: Using low ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing spells are penalized.

Frost Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostibte effect.

Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slow.

Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.

Paladins

Avenger’s Shield, Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Divine Illumination: The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.

Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Judgment of the Crusader: It is no longer possible to have icons for two different ranks of Judgment of the Crusader appear at the same time when judged by multiple Paladins.

Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now been fixed.

Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered. It will also function properly even when the Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.

Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Rogues

Cheat Death: A combat log message will now show when this ability activates.

Vanish: This ability will no longer sometimes cause the UI to display Shadowmeld as active when it has been cancelled.

Abilities that can be used while stealthed, without breaking stealth, can now be cast without breaking Vanish when used at the same time.

Sap mechanic changed from “Incapacitate” to “Sap”. This will allow more humanoids that were previously immune to Sap to be vulnerable to Sap, but still immune to Gouge. Note that anything that removed Sap previously will still remove Sap after the change.

Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.

Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.

Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.

Stormstrike has a new icon.

Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.

The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometime detonate without doing any damage.

Warlocks

Demonic Knowledge: This buff will no longer remain on enslaved demons when Enslave Demon is removed.

Pyroclasm: This talent now works correctly again with Rain of Fire.

Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances if they meet the instance requirements.

Shadow Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Warriors

Endless Rage will now give the correct amount of rage as intended from damage dealt by a Warrior.

Stances: It is no longer possible to accidentally change into a stance you are already in via macros (resulting in a global cooldown and loss of rage).

Whirlwind: Critical strikes with the off-hand weapon from this ability can now trigger Flurry and Rampage.

Flurry will properly refresh if a crit occurs with 1 charge left.

Improved Hamstring (Arms) effect is now subject to diminishing returns when used in PvP.

PvP

Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.

Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.

Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will be worth no honor.

Added new PvP daily quests that send players to Halaa and the Spirit Towers of the Bone Wastes. These quests are available for Alliance and Horde at their respective local quest hubs.

Arenas

Shadow Sight now increases damage taken by 5% rather than dealing damage over time. Duration has been reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds.

Battlegrounds

If a player dies 50 times or more in a battleground, they will no longer be worth honor for the remainder of that battle.

When you first enter a battleground, messages about other players joining the battleground will be linked together for the first minute. You will see a message in AV like “28 players joined” rather than a line for each player that joined. After the first minute, it will work as it always has. In addition all of the messages about other players leaving the battleground and getting marks of honor once the battleground is complete have been removed.

Alterac Valley

Captain Balinda Stonehearth’s spells have been simplified, and she can no longer be slowed or locked out of a school with interrupts (although she can still be interrupted).

Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced.

Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other’s maximum health and damage by 25%. This is a stacking effect.

Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek’Thar and Frostwolf Keep.

Warsong Gulch

When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.

Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the flag.

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Professions

Added several new tradeskill items to the new Sunwell Daily faction vendor:

Enchanting recipe to shatter a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards.

Enchanting recipe to increase Defense Rating by 15 for chest armor.

Three jewelcrafting recipes to cut gems with spell haste from Dawnstones, Talasite, and noble Topaz.

Two new meta gem recipes.

Alchemy

Gift of Arthas now stacks to 20.

Cooking

Broiled Bloodfin now increases resistances to all schools of magic instead of increasing Stamina and Spirit.

New recipes, Charred Bear Kabobs and Juicy Bear Burgers, can be purchased from either Bale (Horde) or Malygen (Alliance) in Felwood. These recipes requires 250 skill to learn, and are created from meat found on level 48-56 bears. This will aid players in leveling up their cooking skill to 300 without fishing.

Enchanting

Reduced the materials required for Enchant Shield – Resistance

Engineering

Gagsprocket in Ratchet now sells the plans for the Minor Recombobulator.

The stun caused by engineering Bombs and Grenades is now considered an Incapacitate effect and uses the appropriate Incapacitate diminishing returns. Bomb and Grenades can now inflict damage to targets immune to Stun and Incapacitate effects.

A new recipe has been added for Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite, a cloth version of the Rocket Boots Xtreme. This pattern drops from Mechano-Lord Capacitus.

Rocket Boots Xtreme now have all their stat points allocated toward Attack Power, and will no longer have Stamina.

Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite will cause players to drop a PvP flag if used while carrying one. (Warsong Gulch, Eye of the Storm, and Zangarmarsh)

Fishing

New Fishing Daily Quests! Visit the mysterious old man fishing at Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath City to discover what treasures he has to offer.

Dungeons and Raids<LI>All 25-player raid bosses have had their cash drops increased! <LI>All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token! <LI>Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal. <LI>Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple. <LI>Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of “Hand of A’dal”. <LI>You may now fight Prince Kael’thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons. <LI>The Unstable Cloud and Frost Breath spells are now treated properly as a movement impairing spells. <LI>Non-corporeal Undead and Mechanical creatures are now susceptible to bleed effects. <LI>Elemental creatures are no longer explicitly immune to poison and disease effects. Elementals with nature school immunities will still be immune to nature-based poisons, however. <LI>Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped. <LI>Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been significantly increased. <LI>Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate. <LI>Caverns of Time: Heroic Black Morass

Rift Keepers and Rift Lords now have reduced hit points.

<LI>Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal

The Vials of Eternity quest is no longer necessary for entry to Hyjal. This quest is still required for faction rings.

Azgalor’s Rain of Fire now affects a smaller area.

<LI>Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad

The Human Illusion effect will now always be removed properly when a player leaves the instance.

<LI>Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon’s Lair

Many gameplay elements of the encounters in Magtheridon’s Lair have been changed to decrease their overall complexity and difficulty.

<LI>Tempest Keep: Kael’thas

The Vapor Clouds in the Kael’thas encounter are significantly easier to see.

<LI>Tempest Keep: The Mechanar

The Mechanar: It is no longer possible to gain an additional Badge of Justice by bringing Cache of the Legion keys obtained in other copies of the instance.

<LI>Tempest Keep: The Eye

Void Reaver is now immune to Vindication again.

User Interface

<LI>The Interface Options screen has been completely redesigned. AddOns that interact with the Interface Options screen will need to be updated. <LI>Combat Log Improvements

New tabs are available for sorting combat messages.

ctrl-right clicking functionality has been added for individual information sorting

Colors may now be assigned for friends and enemies

The WoWCombatLog.txt file format has been changed to make it easier for programs to read.

The ability to chat-link player spells and talents.

<LI>Cast sequences work with slot numbers again. <LI>GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name. <LI>You can now declare war on a faction in the reputation UI while you are in combat. <LI>Spell haste and Armor Penetration will now display on the character sheet. (Armor Penetration displays in the hit rating section). Spell Penetration now displays under the spell hit section. <LI>Weapon enchants are now shown at the character selection screen. <LI>The friends list now has a notes field per friend. Click on the note icon to add a note for a particular friend. <LI>There is now a UI option to display free bag space. When turned on, your backpack will display the total number of free spaces available in all your bags. <LI>You can now link quests into the chat log by Shift-Clicking on the quest name in the chat log. <LI>Merchants now display how many pages of merchandise they sell (Page 1 of 2). <LI>Guild Bank Changes

Ranks can now be set to allow withdraw of funds or allow repair with funds or both.

When purchasing a bank tab, it takes money out of the guild bank before it takes your personal money. This is logged as well.

Each Tab now has an info pane. This pane can be used for requests or for rules about the tab or anything at all really.

<LI>When looting Bind on Pickup items, the confirmation dialogue now lists the name of the item in the dialogue. You can now verify that you are picking up the correct bind on pickup item. <LI>Bind on Pickup items that only you can pick up (Heroic Badges for instance) will no longer bring up a confirmation dialogue. <LI>Players can now opt out of looting for group loot, round robin and need before greed looting styles. If a player turns this on, they will not get a looting turn in the loot cycle. This can be turned on from the right-click menu on your own portrait. <LI>In Master Loot mode, all players in the group will see sparkles on corpses that have loot above the master loot threshold. This lets everyone see what the master loot items are, though they cannot interact with them. Only the master looter can loot those items still. <LI>The names over the heads of nearby players who are on your friends list will appear in a different color now so you can tell when they are nearby. <LI>Stacked items for sale at the auction house now display the per unit price and per unit buyout price in the item mouseover. <LI>The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for searching of more types of things. For instance you can search for items by socket color, by effect (”Critical Strike” for instance) or search gems by their effect (”Strength” for instance). In addition, the searching of items by level has been made more intuitive. You can now search for items by level with “15-20″ to search for items that you can make that have a minimum level required of 15 to 20. <LI>The Tooltip for player Dodge/Block/Parry in the character sheet has been changed slightly. <LI>Optimized particle system rendering for improved frame rates. <LI>The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard (mage) or Rain of Fire (warlock) with spell haste. <LI>For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.